What is moreopen?

moreopen is an umbrella organisation aiming to help the UK public sector become more open about how it works and what it spends; the sources of ideas it draws on; and the ways in which it collaborates. Much of this is enabled by digital and social technologies, but making it a reality takes organisational and cultural change as well as professional skill and courage.

The organisation:

• helps to organise events: UK GovCamp and other govcamps
• raises sponsorship: which in turn provides seed funding to enable grassroots networking and collaboration events to happen
• in time, it might do other things, using its small financial assets and professional network to help advance the cause of transparency, participation and collaboration in government.

We’re working on the formal structure, but moreopen is intended to be a not for profit organisation with a social purpose: to support people and projects inside and outside the public sector who are working to these ends. With this in mind, moreopen will have a Board of Advisors to help guide the direction of the organisation’s activities and its financial support. moreopen will also reinvest at least 50% of its profits in community events, information and advice.

It was set up in autumn 2010 by Dave Briggs and Steph Gray.

Who got funding?

At the beginning of March, we announced a small grant scheme using sponsorship from the UKGovcamp in January 2011 to help seed-fund a batch of further such events around the country. We had some great applications, and here’s the list of who we’ve funded so far:

We Are What We Tweet
8 April 2011

As part of the Social Media as Practise course as MA students of Social Media at Birmingham City University, the class staged a one day event looking examining the context of social media use and how it can bring governments and citizens together.

Recipient: Chioma Agwuegbo
Received: £300

ShropCamp
19 April 2011

Focused on communities and services. How can we use social media and open data to help service providers to work more effectively at a local level?

Recipient: Ben Proctor
Received: £600

MailCamp
12 May 2011

MailCamp is a free, one-off show & tell event on 12 May for people interested in how the public sector uses email marketing, newsletter and alerts to engage its audiences.

Recipient: Steph Gray
Received: £600

YouthWorkOnline unconference
21 May 2011

This one-day free open space event brings together practitioners from youth work, participation and voluntary youth projects with digital media developers and experts to share ideas and practice, to explore what the digital world means for young people’s lives, and for services seeking to support young people as they navigate growing up in a connected world.

Register at: http://cgen11.eventbrite.com/

Recipient: Tim Davies
Received: £600

Localgovcamp
18 June 2011

LocalGovCamp is coming back to its spiritual home, Birmingham, this June – and it’s going to be bigger and better than ever. 200 of the most innovative and creative people in the local government sector will be coming together on a Saturday to talk about making things better – sometimes with technology, sometimes not.

Register at: http://localgovcamp2011.eventbrite.com/

Recipient: Dave Briggs
Received: £1,000

LearnPod
13 July 2011

LearnPod aims to debate the use of technology and innovation in learning, predominantly in the post-16 education context.

Register at: http://learnpod11.eventbrite.com

Recipient: Kevin Campbell-Wright
Received: £500

AnalyticsCamp

Autumn 2011 TBC

A one day practical & sharing event for those who don’t quite fit in with central gov, are a long way from local gov and also don’t quite click with the events in higher education, museums or the charity sector. Reclaiming the word ‘quango’ for a positive, rather than a focus for scorn.

Updated: now an event looking at analytics, evaluation and measurement

Recipient: Matt Jukes
Received: £400

North East Hackday
Summer 2011, TBC

Getting people who would not normally go at an event that is any way associated with government to some along and start thinking about and using the data that local councils and the open data initiatives are making available.

Recipient: Alistair MacDonald
Received: £100

ScotGovCamp
24 September 2011, University of Aberdeen

ScotGovCamp is a self organised unconference for people who work in and around government in Scotland.

Recipient: Lesley Thomson
Received: £500

North London LocalGovCamp
TBC

A North London localgovcamp event, inviting people who are involved with related projects, focusing on North London boroughs – Camden, Islington, Haringey, Barnet, etc.

Recipient: Anke Holst
Received: £300

RuralCamp
TBC

Recipient: Dave Briggs
Received: £200

BrewCamp
September/November

Recipient: Dan Slee & friends
Received: £200

Hyperlocal West Midlands
October 21, Warwickshire

Recipient: Dan Slee/Kate Sahota
Received: £50

LibraryCamp
Autumn 2011

A spin-off inspired by LocalGovCamp

Recipient: Si Whitehouse
Received: £200

…

Ten Fourteen spin-off projects ain’t bad going, touching maybe another 1000 people and keeping the govcamp buzz and optimism going through the year. Good luck – and thanks in advance – to the organisers above, and another big thank you to the original sponsors of UKGovcamp whose patronage helped all of these get off the ground via MoreOpen. An organiser of one of the events reported:

You were the first people to offer us sponsorship and that managed to convince other people to take us seriously. Without your help we probably wouldn’t have been able to deliver the event at all.

The cashpoint is now closed until, hopefully, next year. Thanks all!

Announcing moreopen grants

As UKGovcamp 2011 fades into the memory, and exciting events such as ShropCamp (19 April) hove into view, it’s time to formally lift the veil on our mini grant scheme to help get more great public sector digital innovation off the ground.

UKGovcamp was a great event, and we managed to bring in enough sponsorship to cover costs, and set up a small fund to support follow up events. So far, four have been supported:

• ShropCamp: how social media and open data can help service providers to work more effectively at a local level in and around Shropshire
• Youth Work Online: the third national get-together of people interested in using the social web for youth engagement and participation
• Localgovcamp: the national get-together of local government folk, held in Birmingham, to talk about digital stuff at a local level
• MailCamp [working title]: a show-and-tell seminar event on how effective use of email can help public sector organisations reach audiences more cheaply and drive engagement at scale

But to cut a long story short, there’s still a bit of money in the pot, so we’re inviting applications from individuals and teams who have an idea for an event or project which ticks the following boxes:

1. Is for people in, or interested in, the UK public sector
2. Is about transparency, engagement or collaboration involving new technologies
3. Doesn’t have much – if any – other funding or sponsors, and needs help to cover catering, venue or logistics costs
4. Is run on a not-for-profit basis; ideally free to participants

So it might be that you want to run a weekend localgovcamp in your area. Or you might want to get together a group of people new to this stuff and run a pecha kucha evening. Or you might want to focus on something specific like film-making or consultation or using Facebook effectively in the public sector, and get people to show-and-tell their experiences.

The application process is really simple: use the application form on this site to tell us:

• a little bit about who you are
• what your event or project is about
• what you need the money for

You can bid for any amount up to £1,000, but we expect most grants for small events to be around £250 or £500: enough to cover pizzas or a large room if you can’t find one for free.

The grant scheme will be run on a rolling basis, until the money runs out, so don’t delay in making your application. Having a bit of seed funding behind you will hopefully make you a stronger candidate for sponsorship by other organisations, so the idea is to help you get the ball rolling.

FAQs

1. Can you run the event for me?
   No, sorry. We just help with a bit of money. We’re still knackered from organising UKGovcamp.
2. OK, but can you promote it for me?
   To an extent, we’d love to. We’ll tweet and blog about it here, and can set you up with a subsite on http://www.ukgovcamp.com if you want. In any case, we recommend you set up a group and get people talking about the event, to sound out interest and ideas for content.
3. How big is the grant fund?
   Not very. A few grand altogether.
4. I’ve got an idea but I’m not sure it’s what you’re looking for
   Drop us a line and let us know what you’re thinking about. There’s no harm in asking, and it’s a very informal process.